Summer Vacation Can Be A New Experience For College Students and Their Parents

Staying home for a few months can be very different than visiting for a weekend or a couple weeks during the holiday season. Boundaries may have to be set and schedules for meal times may have to be coordinated, such as who will be home for which meals and what will be done for those meal times.

Don’t allow young adult children to take advantage of being at home for the summer. Adult children should be able to pay for their own personal items or specific grocery items they want for themselves. To give adult children a bit of a financial break, parents can allow them to stay for the summer rent-free. In addition, as long as adult children don’t cause too much of a financial strain, parents can pay for meals and utilities without asking them for money. However, if a problem does arise, it should be discussed immediately and financial arrangements may have to be made.

Since adult children have been on their own for a while, certain house rules, such as curfew, may not have to be enforced as heavily. However, it would be courteous for adult children to inform parents if they will be out very late or if they intend to stay over at someone else’s house. Parents may want to consider giving adult children a key so it will be easier for them to come and go.

Adult children and parents should discuss the possibility of house guests before inviting friends to spend the night or to stay for a few days. It would be nice for parents to meet the friends of their adult children since they don’t ordinarily get to do so. Different households have different rules concerning mixed gender bedroom arrangements, so that also should be discussed before inviting guests over.

Toward the end of summer, parents should encourage adult children to go back to school or to find a job to move on to a new phase in their life.

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SOURCE: Kathy Bosch, Ph.D., family life specialist